Vehicles left after Katrina still idle

HURRICANE AFTERMATHEfforts to get rid of thousands of abandoned cars proves to be a 'complicated job'

MARY FOSTER, Associated Press

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, March 26, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - The floodwaters are long gone from Dorothy Williams' house, but there is one reminder of Hurricane Katrina she cannot seem to get rid of — the water-damaged car in front of her home.

"We got a bunch of people together Saturday night and were going to push it into the middle of the street and set it on fire," the retiree said last week. "We figured the city would have to do something about it then.

"But it has four flats and the gears are stripped so we couldn't move it."

Nearly seven months after Katrina, the streets of New Orleans are still strewn with thousands of abandoned cars — many of them flooded-out, some stolen, some left by residents who have not returned since the Aug. 29 storm. There are seven such cars on Williams' block alone.

Many of the vehicles have been plundered of everything of value, including the tires. Many are encrusted with the dried gray muck left after floodwaters receded. Some have become havens for insects and rats.

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"We couldn't get anyone to take it away, though, because they need proof we own it," she said. "The registration was in the glove box, and there was 6 feet of water over the car, so that's gone."

Across the state, authorities are laboring to identify and find the owners — who may be in other states — and come up with places to store the towed vehicles.

"It's a very complicated job," said Lt. Allen Carpenter of the Louisiana State Police fraud unit. Before Katrina, "the largest vehicle removal ever was for 9/11, and that was only 2,800 cars. I'd say we have already identified and removed over 200,000 cars" statewide.

Statewide, an estimated 350,000 vehicles were flooded by Katrina and by Hurricane Rita, which hit Louisiana on Sept. 24.

Carpenter said perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 have yet to be removed.

In New Orleans itself, the figure is put at 20,000 to 25,000.

The state expects to have a contractor in place by April 1 to start hauling the vehicles away. The cars will be stored while the state attempts to contact owners.

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"Our goal is to have them all gone by June 1," Carpenter said. He said full FEMA funding for the removal effort ends on that date, which also happens to be the first day of hurricane season.

"We want to get them out of the way before the next storm comes," he said.